I've been building my SaaS for 129 days. Here's a NO-BS list of mistakes I made (and lessons I learned)

1. Prepare legal ground

Have an LLC or some other legal entity so you can collect payments and bypass limitations you'll most definitely run into, if not on this SaaS, then on the next one.

I didn't think about it until I faced APIs such as Meta API or Stripe which required a legal entity. You can always open an LLC remotely in USA, there are many companies that provide this service. It will typically cost you around $500. If you want recommendation on a service I used, DM me.

2. Analyze the market and your competitors before committing your resources

I didn't analyze the market properly. I looked at 4-5 big competitors and their features and that was it. As I kept building, I encountered more and more competition in the space, and it wasn't until the 4th month that I fully realized how crowded this space really is.

To be fair, I didn't know how to do proper research.

If I were starting over, here's what I'd do:

1. Go to AlternativeTo
2. Search your top 5-6 competitors
3. Compile all their alternatives into a table

Here you go, this is your competition. It will include big names as well as small indie hackers like yourself. Study them and figure out where you fit.

If you still want to continue, move on.

3. Select a dead domain name

I was careless with my first name. At the end of 3rd month I had to bite the bullet and spend a few days to re-brand everything, and to start the SEO game from scratch.

Make sure the name you're selecting is a dead name. Nothing significant should appear on Google. Make sure the social media handles for this name are available. Make sure there are no other services, especially in the same niche, that have a very similar name.

Brainstorm the name with ChatGPT. Brainstorm the name with friends. It's easy to get attached and get biased toward a name. You need 3rd party view on this.

4. Start with a Waitlist

Setup simple UTM and Referral tracking.

Ask for the name so later you can make the emails more personalized.

Bare minimum for your waitlist: target audience, feature list, "how it works", and FAQ.

You can start with just text. When you have something to show, put a screenshot/video there.

Add "Welcome" email to the waitlist. As such, you 1) warm up the mailbox and 2) you can see if any emails bounced.

Promote the waitlist on reddit/linkedin/X. Best source for me was Reddit. You can promote even on subreddits which do not allow promotion, if you do it smart. I made some posts on subreddits without including a link to the waitlist, and people reached out to me via DMs asking for a link.

5. ENGAGE WITH YOUR WAITLIST

Seriously, just do it. Those people signed up. Every week you make something new, you can share it with them. Send a biweekly update on the progress.

I kept silent for 2.5 months before I engaged the waitlist. And when I finally did, what happened? Crickets...

6. Choose proven stack

Put your ego aside. Seriously. Just choose what works.

I spent so much time simply because my stack was not optimal. In particular, Vue and Nuxt, which I use, are great frameworks, but they lack in community.

7. Choose an SSR framework for landing page

This one may be obvious to some, but it cost me a week separating my landing page from the app so I can get SEO benefits. Don't be me.

8. Choose proven hosting

I spent several days to relocate my backend from fly.io to render.com because fly.io turned out to be ridiculously slow.

9. Start the SEO game early

Warm up your domain authority. Spend a few days to submit your Waitlist/MVP into directories. Write/generate SEO friendly high quality articles. Optimize your landing and blog page for SEO.

There is absolutely no reason to not invest a few 2-3 days into it early on unless you're still in the experimentation phase.

10. Once your MVP is out, you will get at least a few regular users. Engage with them

Listen to what your users say. Engage with them. Ask how they are doing. Ask for improvement ideas. Ask for feedback. Check up on them from time to time. You first 5 users are very important. When you fully release, consider leaving them as free users. They will become your cheerleaders.

11. Do not code. Instead, PLAN

Think like an architect. Only code to validate hypotheses or prove something works, but once it does, don't rush into building the full ap. Pause. Design first.

Look, these days AI writes 80% of the code. But it doesn't know your vision. If you don't plan the big picture, you'll end up refactoring endlessly.

Start with your data model. Seriously, I spent weeks reworking mine. And I've had plenty of smaller refactors that could have been avoided had I put more thoughts into planning.

Think. Plan. Then build.

12. Do not waste time on UI

Just accept that your MVP UI does not matter. When the time is right, you will change it anyway. Don't spend time on the UI on the first version of the app. Just make it simple and clean, but don't overdo it.

13. Look for out of box solutions when possible

I spent 5 days developing custom billing portal only to find out that Stripe provides it out of box. It took me less than 2 hours to integrate the OOB one.

14. Simplify, simplify, simplify

Can't emphasize this enough. I know this is hard. Your backlog will grow. You'll have more and more ideas. But you have to stay razor sharp. Focus on one specific problem. Whenever you can, look for short cuts.

80% of time the right decision to whatever dilemma you're having is to simplify.

If this helped you — let me know what resonated.

Or tell me what you wish you knew before launching 🚀

Thank you for reading.